Flat Feet

Diet, Exercise and Body Manipulations

• Please click for ‘Ask ‘Doctor Jo’ exercise tips

Other exercises to consider:

Marble pickups

• Another exercise that strengthens the intrinsic (deep) muscles in your feet involves using your toes to pick up marbles.
• Place 10 to 20 marbles on the floor next to a bowl. While seated, use your toes to grab each marble and place it in the bowl.
• Picking up a towel with your toes can give you a similar workout.

Heel raises

• An easy exercise, begin with feet flat on the floor and raise your heels, putting the weight on the balls of your feet.
• Hold the position for a few seconds and slowly lower yourself down.

Heel walking and toe walking

• Walking across the room on your heels with your toes in the air can strengthen muscles in your ankles and feet.
• Repeating the exercise on your toes with your heels in the air (essentially walking tip-toe) can do the same.

Massage — don’t stretch — flat feet

• Typically, stretching is something that is part of a regular exercise routine, keeping muscles loose. But in the case of flat feet,
• Stretching is a bad idea. “Because there’s already some instability, stretching can lengthen your muscle tissue and cause further instability.”
• Instead massaging should be part of your regimen to help keep those foot muscles from getting too tight. “We want to treat those tight spots in the muscles but not in a way that’s going to make them longer or less able to provide support,” he says.
• Some of those options include:
  • Massage the area with your thumbs.
  • Gently roll your arch over a golf ball.
  • Dry needling.
  • Vibrating massages such as with massage guns.
• Also massage your calf and even your spine because of the way certain muscles — like the gastrocnemius and soleus muscles, the large muscles in the back of your lower leg — connect your calf to your foot.

Aerobic exercises for fallen arches

•  Consider biking, swimming or rowing (not weight bearing exercises- discuss these exercises with a foot specialist before doing so).
• walk short distances (not long) and rest, Build up to those longer distances at a slow but steady pace.

What exercises should you avoid with flat feet?

• can do any exercise as long as one has no pain or tightness (beware of jumping and weight bearing exercises though).

Should special shoes or support equipment be used with flat feet?

• Wear shoe comes with a toe box that allows your toes to splay or spread.
• Having the toe box of the shoe too narrow can change how your foot contacts the ground and supports your body, which may lead to other injuries.
• Consider specialist arch supports , these should be comfortable – if cause pain do not use (please note not to rely on them – exercise is the best way to strengthen your foot).
  • Relying on arch supports will eventually weaken the muscles in your foot since one does not tend to exercise.

Dr Bogden Cleveland Clinic